Cron is a job scheduling program available on UNIX-like platforms. Most system commands can be scheduled including the execution of Perl programs. Once a job is setup, cron will run it as scheduled even if the user is not logged in, which can be a great way to automate sysadmin tasks or repetitive jobs. This article describes how to run Perl scripts with cron.

When Perl is executing a program, it maintains the user id of the process owner in a global variable ($<). When a Perl program is executed by root or a user with root privileges (e.g. using the sudo command), the user id variable is always set to zero. This can be checked at the command line:

New MacPerl CD-ROM Available Rich Morin (rdm@cfcl.com) of Prime Time Freeware has produced the MacPerl CD-ROM, a distribution of the Perl for the Macintosh along with other Mac tools and documentation. I asked him about the MacPerl community and…

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